Chapter 619 - 618: Kinetic Energy Attenuation - Ashen God

CHAPTER 619: CHAPTER 618: KINETIC ENERGY ATTENUATION

October 26, Monday, the day after Double Ninth Festival and also Zhang Yanhang’s second day in the Ashen World, 2:11 PM, Demonized Swamp, Eastern Forest, inner area.

[Successfully killed a First Tier Three Star Monster ’Demonized Maned Beast (Ordinary)’ ×1, Soul points +9.]

...

At this moment, Zhang Yanhang was standing on the canopy of a large tree about a dozen meters high and as thick as two adults embracing, spraying bullets downward at the Demonized Maned Beasts attempting to climb the trunk to accelerate their own death—oh wait, no, attempting to launch an attack on Zhang Yanhang.

But even though he was in battle, Zhang Yanhang was somewhat distracted. He was thinking about something else. Even though he was indeed distracted, his long-established battle or hunting instincts allowed him to easily hit these Half-Demonized Demonized Maned Beasts.

Of course, this hunting instinct could also be called muscle memory. Through prolonged periods of hunting, he had become extremely skillful in killing monsters, and besides, the Gun Master Skill also assisted his shooting to some extent. Therefore, he could maintain a normal hit rate even while distracted.

As for why Zhang Yanhang was suddenly distracted, it wasn’t because of some trivial matter like suddenly feeling an itch in his ear wanting to scratch it. Instead, it was due to something that seemed quite important; he seemed to have discovered a new monster.

However, this new monster was a bit far from him, approximately at the limit of the range of his Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill, and moreover, it quickly moved out of his scanning range.

Yes, moved—as in swimming. The monster Zhang Yanhang had just noticed wasn’t actually inside the Demonized Swamp’s Eastern Forest but came from one of the four thick rivers that divided the entire Demonized Swamp into five parts, the one adjacent to the Eastern Forest.

In that river, Zhang Yanhang spotted a creature similar to a crocodile, but to call it a crocodile would be an understatement. It looked more like some primordial crocodile, being over ten meters in length, far from comparable to the modern crocodiles which are only two or three meters long.

From the size of this huge crocodile alone, Zhang Yanhang believed it definitely wasn’t a First Tier Monster but had to be some kind of Second Tier Monster living in the Demonized Swamp. Although it quickly swam out of his scanning range, the scan result still definitely showed it as Second Tier.

This huge crocodile was similar to the monsters Zhang Yanhang had previously scanned in the lake area. He suspected it had swum out from the lakes through the river channels.

But even though he truly scanned a new monster, Zhang Yanhang didn’t have time to deal with it for now since his current main task was to clear the Eastern Forest of the Demonized Swamp. He might consider dealing with it after he had cleared the Eastern Forest or if he happened to encounter it later on.

Otherwise, compared to dealing with it alone, it would definitely be more convenient to clean up several at once later.

Da-da-da—

While pondering, Zhang Yanhang never ceased firing his Six Roots Pure Soul Gun. There were originally only about a dozen Demonized Maned Beasts below him and with his slight distraction, by the time he came back to the moment, only the last Demonized Maned Beast remained.

Previous Demonized Maned Beasts, after activating the Half-Demonized Skill, immediately dived under the canopy, seemingly hoping to use it to block Zhang Yanhang’s view and avoid the shooting from the Six Roots Pure Soul Gun.

However, such evasion was meaningless for Zhang Yanhang. After all, his hunting of monsters didn’t rely on his eyes but through continuous scanning of his surroundings with the Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill to grasp the monsters’ positions and conditions.

Thus, even though these monsters hid behind the thick tree trunks and canopy, attempting to attack Zhang Yanhang from behind, they were effortlessly penetrated along with the tree trunks by his shots.

The trees on the outer perimeter of the Demonized Swamp were indeed very thick, each at least as thick as an adult embracing, but thickness alone doesn’t qualify the quality. They were just ordinary trunks, and no matter how thick, they couldn’t block the cannon bullets of the Six Roots Pure Soul Gun.

Unless possibly if they were ten meters thick—in that case, the kinetic energy of the cannon bullets might decay significantly. Obviously, though, such huge trunks simply didn’t exist.

Even if they did, in the Ashen World, they would likely be at least Second Tier Tree Demons, not ordinary trees filling the entire forest, providing cover for the Demonized Maned Beasts.

But, this last remaining Demonized Maned Beast seemed to have learned from the fate of the previous dozen or so that had died, acting smarter. Since the tree where Zhang Yanhang was could not be climbed, it decided to climb other trunks, seemingly attempting to reach the canopy and then jump horizontally.

Unfortunately, it was still unable to evade the shooting from the cannon bullets and got its head blown off with a single shot by Zhang Yanhang.

[Successfully killed a First Tier Three Star Monster ’Demonized Maned Beast (Ordinary)’ ×1, Soul points +9.]

After smoothly killing those dozen or so Demonized Maned Beasts, Zhang Yanhang still stood firmly on the tree canopy without moving, quietly waiting for the treasure box to refresh. Unfortunately, after a few seconds, none of the recently killed dozen or so Demonized Maned Beasts dropped any treasure box.

Zhang Yanhang was quite accustomed to this. According to drop rates, only when more than twenty Demonized Maned Beasts are killed at the same time will there definitely be a treasure box drop. He had just killed about fifteen, so the absence of a treasure box was quite normal.

"After successfully taking down these fifteen Demonized Maned Beasts just now, the Eastern Forest has been cleared of approximately thirty square kilometers."

In the three hours, Zhang Yanhang ceaselessly hunted the demonized maned beasts. If one were to measure the hunting efficiency, he was able to clear an area of one square kilometer every six minutes on average, which is about a minute and a half faster than the previous seven and a half minutes per square kilometer in the Southern Forest.

Although it still did not match the efficiency of five minutes per square kilometer achieved in the Goblin Plain, it was indeed much better than the initial ten minutes per square kilometer. If it could be sped up further, it would effectively double the clearing efficiency.

Regarding the current six-minute-per-square-kilometer clearing efficiency, Zhang Yanhang was still not entirely satisfied. Initially, he even thought that with the "As Flat as a Pancake" and an increase in movement speed from raising his Talent Level, he might push the efficiency down to about five minutes. Unfortunately, he overestimated himself.

Or perhaps, he underestimated the proportion of the treasure box refresh time, as its fixed duration meant that the more he sped up the clearing efficiency, the greater the proportion of the treasure box refresh time became. Therefore, as he progressed, enhancing his hunting efficiency became increasingly challenging.

Although it was quite normal, the significant impact of the treasure box refresh time made it difficult to compress the clearing time. Regrettably, there was not much he could do to resolve this issue, so he had no choice but to continue clearing as he was.

However, once he reached the Third Tier, he would certainly find a way to solve it as he already had a rough idea. It was just that he was currently not strong enough to implement it.

"At present, I’ve cleared thirty square kilometers of the Eastern Forest, which accounts for 23.1% of the Demonized Swamp’s second-tier cleaning plan. That’s quite decent.

Currently, I can clear ten square kilometers per hour, and with one hundred square kilometers left in the Eastern Forest, that’s about ten more hours needed.

It’s only two ten now. If I push myself a bit and save these ten minutes, then I could truly clear the entire Eastern Forest today. It seems this small goal is not so difficult to achieve after all."

Adding up the area of the Eastern Forest Zhang Yanhang just cleared with the ninety square kilometers he cleared before sleeping, it totaled one hundred twenty square kilometers, which exactly accounts for 30% of the entire Demonized Swamp cleaning plan.

"It’s already the second day, and I’ve only just cleared 30%, which feels slightly inadequate. Normally, I have four days, so I should be clearing at least 25% each day to completely clear the Demonized Swamp before leaving the Ashen World."

Fortunately, although the current progress was not very promising, since it was just the beginning, Zhang Yanhang felt he could still accomplish it. Although he had not achieved the average of 25% yesterday, he believed he would surely manage it by the end of today.

After all, his hunting efficiency had improved so much. If he still couldn’t finish, it would indeed be preposterous. Alternatively, it must mean something unexpected had occurred midway. Otherwise, as long as he hunted normally, he should certainly meet today’s average progress.

Besides the matter of hunting efficiency, during his recent hunting, Zhang Yanhang also discovered something else. The monster density in the Eastern Forest was slightly lower than that of the Southern Forest, where there were over sixty monsters per square kilometer, compared to just over fifty in the Eastern Forest.

This resulted in Zhang Yanhang having cleared thirty square kilometers but having hunted only about one thousand six hundred demonized maned beasts so far.

Of course, this estimate does not include the demonized maned beasts from the slot machine’s third prize pool. If that part were included, there might be around 1,700 demonized maned beasts.

Even when those demonized maned beasts were included, Zhang Yanhang had only collected around eighty or ninety drop treasure boxes, which indeed seemed a little scarce. However, little by little, after Zhang Yanhang had completely cleared the entire Eastern Forest, he should be able to collect a significant number of drop treasure boxes.

"Next, I should continue clearing the remaining one hundred square kilometers of the Eastern Forest." Since he hadn’t waited for the drop treasure boxes to refresh, Zhang Yanhang did not hesitate to rush towards another congregation point of the demonized maned beasts based on the scan results from ’Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil.’

...

October 26th, Monday, the day after the Double Ninth Festival and also Zhang Yanhang’s second day in the Ashen World, at nine o’clock in the evening, in the demonized swamp, inside the Eastern Forest.

After successfully killing thirty demonized maned beasts with the Death Wave Skill, Zhang Yanhang now stood still, quietly waiting for the drop treasure boxes to refresh.

[Successfully killed a first-tier three-star monster ’Demonized Maned Beast (Normal)’ x1, Soul points +9.]

...

Seven hours had passed since then, and during these seven hours, Zhang Yanhang continued with an average efficiency of clearing one square kilometer every six minutes, clearing another seventy square kilometers.

Thus, including the thirty square kilometers he had cleared earlier, Zhang Yanhang had now cleared a total of one hundred square kilometers.

"If I were to convert this into the second stage of the Demonized Swamp clearing plan, that would be about 76.9%, which compared to the previous 23.1%, is another increase of 53.8% in the clearing progress. It’s more than three-quarters of the area cleared, only the last quarter remaining to completely clear the Eastern Forest."

Moreover, if we include the ninety square kilometers he had earlier cleared in the Southern Forest, he had now cleared a total of one hundred and ninety square kilometers of the Demonized Swamp, which, in terms of the overall clearing progress of the Demonized Swamp clearing plan, is 47.5%, another significant leap of 17.5% from the previous 30%.

"It’s just past nine o’clock and I’ve already successfully cleared 47.5% of the total area. With this pace, it seems very feasible to reach over fifty percent by the end of the day, which would allow me to take it a bit easier on the next two days of clearing."

After all, if one could only clear twenty-five percent each day, although it would indeed be possible to clear the entire Demonized Swamp before the transmission channel closes, it leaves no time to clear Raccoon City and the Goblin Plain. Therefore, Zhang Yanhang felt that completing the clearing earlier was necessary.